work?

This "weekend" I went with Timothy Sound (Part of YFC Slovakia) to work the main stage at a music festival. They picked me up at the ranch on wednesday around 5. we drove two hours and then worked till about midnight or so unpacking the trucks. Thursday we got to the festival site at 8 and worked till around 11 that night getting the stage and all the wires and monitors stuff set up. We headed back Friday morning around 9 to finish setting up the lights and projector and screen and checking everything. Volnost nad Nevolnom (Freedom in Nevolnom - name of the town) started at 3 that afternoon and went till about 2AM. We slept in till around 10 on Saturday and walked around Kremnica for a bit. We headed to the festival around 2PM and worked till 3AM and then got up at 6 AM (3 hours later) on sunday to tear everything down we finished up around 3PM, and then drove back to the ranch. I did not help unload the truck since once it's all boxed up it's too heavy for me.

It was a great weekend. I enjoyed almost every minute. I came home VERY tired. Micah said he's going to talk to the "powers that be" and ask that they not return me next time until i've had a full night's sleep. I get kind of grumpy when i'm tired. (understatement)

All that to say that i have today free!!
I realized that having the day off to do what i want looks a lot like what i do when i work. (aside from the fact that I slept in till 10 and pent the rest of the morning in bed with the kitten and a good book) I have written a few personal e-mails that i've been putting off. I uploaded and played with some pictures in photoshop. I called the bank. I updated my blog. I uploaded some photoshop brushes. I have not bought any yarn yet so i didn't knit anything. and it's raining so i couldn't go for a walk or anything.

Basically i sat at the computer most of the afternoon, just like a regular day. But i didn't do anything i didn't want to or even anything requiring much thought. i'll work tomorrow, and it will look a lot like this afternoon.

I am either very lucky to have a job that i mostly enjoy, or i am very dull and have no personal boundaries.

Buying a car in a foreign country

This is our newest car. In the past year and a half, I have had 3 new cars. Well, none of them were new, but new to me anyway... Also, the front ends of the other cars got smashed up. I'm hoping against that for this one. I have bad luck with cars.


buying a used car is a simple and straightforward procedure or so we were told. Let me sum it up for you....

The first thing you must do to buy a used car in a foreign country is have money to pay cash. In order to do this, you had to request a temporary salary increase at least 2 weeks in advance. No one told us this. If you did not already request the temporary salary increase, you have two options. You can wait two weeks, stranded at the remote location where you are staying temporarily because you can't live anywhere else without a vehicle. Or you can just empty your bank account and borrow money from people you work with. and then pray that no big expenses come up before the next payday.

The second thing you must do is speak the language. If you don't speak the language, you have to find someone who does. Preferably someone who also speaks English and knows a little about cars. This person should also be willing to give up his free day to drive you around looking for a car. (Paly Biros has put up with more trouble on my behalf than any one person should ever have to. I believe he will get an extra crown in heaven just for that)

The third thing you must have is a temporary stay permit (this is a cluster of a process itself). If you do not have a temporary stay permit yet, you must find a Slovak willing to let you put the car in his name. This person will also have to go to the police station at 5 in the morning to transfer all sorts of paperwork. You will have to go with him. He will also have to do something about insurance (still not clear what or how much it will cost).

After you have gathered these things, you will have to drive your car home. If you buy your car 2 hours from where you live, and you do not know what the road signs mean, this will be a stressful thing.

If you get it home, you must be sure and communicate with the man whose name it is in so that all the bureaucracy will be satisfied. This will be complicated by the fact that he does not speak English.

So we have a car. It is sitting in the parking lot. We have no clue when we will be allowed to actually drive it again. It's ok though, we dont have anywhere else to go.

the brain is a wonderful and mysterious place.

I stood up to go down to the bathrooms and take some pictures. (that sounds funny...because this is a retreat center/campground, they are building extra bathrooms outside...oh never mind)
Anyway, As i stood up, i looked at the clock and the thought that occured to me was,

It is quarter to eleven, do you know where your chickens are?

yeah, i'm a bit confused and surprised too.

dum dun duuunnn

creative control strikes again. and on the first day. lets just say that my morning was a total waste because not only is the great idea i had thrown out the window, i am having trouble wiping the slate clean and starting my brain over on a new track :(

I'm in Slovakia!!!

i have waited over a year to type those words again. It feels good! It is nice to be here. Micah doesn't speak any Slovak so i feel really good about what i remember. Tomorrow when we meet with Milos who doesn't speak much English i may feel differently.
It was 24 hours from when we got to the airport until we landed in Kosice. 13 of those hours were spent sitting in airports. Yes, more time on the ground than in the air. i hate airport chairs. that is all i will say on that subject. period.

I thought we might be in trouble when a couple with a baby sat down next to us on the flight from DC to Germany. I consider it God's very big gift to us that the baby didn't cry once during the whole 8 hour flight. She looked like she was about Claire's age. I think Abi might consider it a very big gift if Claire went 8 hours without crying.

I thought we were really in trouble again when the security guard in Germany told Micah there was a pocket knife in his bag. Micah was 100% sure he put that knife in his checked bag. They emptied his bag, found the knife and threw it away for us (no strip searches or anything). I am not sure wether the knife moved itself to the carry-on before or after we left home. All I know is that it didn't show up when we went through security in Pittsburgh. I'm just saying :)

So to summarize, 13 hours of layovers, 11 hours of turbulence free flights, 1 baby who didn't cry, 1 confiscated pocket knife, 2 Henrys in Slovakia. I count this a successful trip so far!!

moving out

can i just refer you to my other blog? it's a reall busy day. we're moving out tonight. nothing is packed and i'm supposed to be calling the FBI not blogging. gotta run.

Spaghetti Brain

OK updating this has been on my list all week!

And now I'm locked out of my appartment (long story, i'm an idiot, apartment still only has one p) and i'm online at the Library. So I am updating to tell you that we made it!!
if i was not locked out of the apartment, i would be on the phone with the travel agent to finalize tickets right now!! (looks like it'll be June 5th)

going to google and then call a locksmith...more later!

YAY yay YAYAYAYA!!!!

SOOOO CLOSE!!

short post. 

lots of calls to make. lots to do. 

Apartment only has one p in it. Our apartment is a mess. 

I work 9+ hours today. I do not believe that a high school male will start getting ready for Prom at noon. I do not believe that he didn't know about the prom more than a week in advance.

We only need between $425 and $450 in pledges by May 15th to reach our goal!! We are trusting God to bring the needed funds in and plan to leave the 1st week of June!!

WOOT WOOT.....

Panory Time

I feel compelled to reccomend to you subscribe to the new and upcoming blog, Panory Time!! the link is over in my sidebar.
It's written by my brother, Alex. He's a little like me. In fact some people believe that he IS me just 13 years younger and a boy. We even had the same haircut for a while.
I should prepare you by letting you know that a Panory is Alex and his friend's own comic creation. A Panory looks like this:
- -
O

except there's a dot in the middle of the o. add a circle head around the face and a stick body and "pow, you have a Panory"

additionally, it's not all about Panorys....(how do you pluralize a made up word?) Sometimes it's an interesting look into the mind of a kinda different 12 year old.

I may be biased. but I love the little Booger, and i think everyone else should too.

below the fold....

No one was in either car, no one was hurt. Just my poor car. The whole story is someone parked uphill in the parking lot from us, without using the parking brake. Consequently, the jeep rolled down the slight hill and into my car.

When we parked the car last night, it was fine. This morning, Micah came back up to the apartment to ask if the car was OK when we parked it last night. (we got home kinda late) :(

Then told me that he had bad news.
Then i felt like crying.
Then the police came.
Then I got fully dressed.
Then i spent all morning on the phone with insurance agents and claims people, who only return calls once you have given up and gotten into the tub.

They keep calling it "your loss" like someone died or something....

It is time to leave the country!

Breaking News in Grove City....

That is all I have to say.

LOOK WHAT I DID!!

OK, I might be taking a bit more credit than I'm due with the whole what I did thing. BUT I Planted these as SEEDS!!! I put my hands In DIRT on the Kitchen Counter......AND! thy haven't died yet!! This (as well as the BEAUTIFUL! weather the past few days) calls for LOTS!!! of Exclamation points!!! and CAPITAL!!! LETTERS!!
I think it's the influence of the farm boy I married. Sometimes though green things in my care live a while and then die unexpectedly. I just hope they turn into flowers soon and look just like the seed packets...only actually GROWING in the pots on my windowsill!!

Spring is here. I can tell because of the little green sprouts on my windowsill, and the increased amount of pressure in my sinuses and the volume of my sneezing. I LOVE! SPRING!!!

referral

It is my humble opinion that everyone should go and look at pictures of my niece in the wild. 

she crawls with her head on the ground, burps and eats dirt.

I tell you what sir. Babies have the life!

Random update stuff

I got a job as a waitress in a BBQ place here in town.  Waitress is the one job I always have always said I could never do. I figured that I would be no good at it. I was mostly right, but since I work the lunch shift we are never too busy and I manage to hold my own. A customer has only made me cry once.

During the past week or so I have collected a number of random thoughts. 

1) The phrase "Dodge Garage" rhymes. Even though it doesn't look like it should. I am surprised that more advertisements don't use this in their radio jingles. It is so perfect that it should be cliche by now.

2) A funeral procession went past the other day. At the end of it there was an ambulance. This seemed backwards to me. I mean I've heard of ambulance chasers, but that's ridiculous! Maybe it was an old person who died and lots of old people came to the funeral? (or it could be that it just got stuck behind the procession)

3) Only 30% of Americans have passports. This is logical to me and sad at the same time.

4) I sometimes watch subtitled TV in my downtime. The other day a lady on the travel channel tried Pickles with Honey & Sour cream. Wether it tastes good or not is totally irrelevant (btw, the travel channel lady said it was good). The real issue is WHO thought this would be a good idea to try in the first place? 

5) I think my brain needs a better music filtering system. In the past week I have had in my head: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Heart and Soul, Freak Parade, Personal Penguin, I Surrender All, My Maria, and various other random, out of season, and generally uncalled for music. 

Dear Brain, could we please stick to the top 40 pop country and christian charts? or at least seasonally appropriate songs that I know all the words to?

6) Occasionally the Closed captioning on ESPN is jibberish that looks like some sort of Scandinavian language. I can't imagine that deaf sports fans appreciate this.

7) spell check wants me to spell jibberish with a G. I politely declined.

8) This is Micah's foot. This picture was taken on my living room floor. It is directly related to the log that was in the bathtub for awhile. In fact the parts of the picture that aren't Micah's foot are pieces of the log that was in the bathtub.

9)We have pledges for 71% of our monthly support!! Looks more and more like we will be getting out of here BY THE END OF MAY!!!

10) I lost my cell phone. If you have it, please call me. It has been deactivated and I have another now. (thanks Mr Phil and Mom) If i used to have your phone number, chances are it was programed in my cell phone and consequently I may no longer have it. Give me a call sometime and then I'll have it again.

Well, there you have it. 10 or so random things that have recently occupied space in my brain.

one of those days

did you ever have one of those days where everything you wanted to do is taking twice as long, you have a thousand e-mails to answer, and appointments to schedule and the kitchen is full of smoke and somehow you lost an entire plate of cooked bacon....and then found an entire plate of cooked bacon on. the. couch! with no clue how it got there. admittedly my couch in only about 10 feet from my stove but STILL!

roller coaster

I love roller coasters. It is stretching to get on them: knowing that I'm about to be scared to death but trusting that the engineers did their job and I will get back off (in one piece). I always keep one eye on the chicken ramp until the moment that I get strapped in. I love to scream. I am the one who burst your eardrums last summer. I do not put my hands in the air. I hold on 'til my knuckles are white. But when the ride stops I feel like I won something.

If you guessed that there was a non-theme-park related reason that i am blogging about roller coasters in February, you win!
Getting on the Steel Phantom or the Thunderbolt is one thing. Living a roller coaster is another--and I'm tired of it, worn out by it. I'm strapped in, committed. The chicken ramp is not an option anymore. I'm holding on for dear life. But i'm getting tired of the ups and downs I wish that I could count on staying right side up for awhile, I want my feet on solid ground again. Preferably Slovak ground.

huh?

One of the greatest joys of being married and sharing a bed is that you get to hear the other person's last incoherent ramblings while they are half asleep.

Micah swears that the other night i started to sing "how much is that Hippo in the window" but then stopped and asked what sound a hippo made. I do not remember this. I think he is making it up.

Last night Micah said to me "you should call the Superbowl people" we have talked about watching the game a number of places so i asked him which people he meant...it went downhill from there.
Micah: call whichever ones you can get a hold of.
Me: what should i tell them
tell them that you like ice cream
huh?
and tell them that rice cakes don't taste good but they are good for you. but if you eat them with milk they fill you up so they're good if you want to lose weight
ok then, should i ask them anything?
yes, ask them where Polaris is located in the winter sky

oh yes, married life is all i thought it would be and more!

Hey I put my new shoes on!!

YAY!! a happy theme song for my tuesday!!

well, Technicaaly, they are socks, but look how cool they are!! and i guess they weren't NEW today, they were a christmas gift thtat accidentally got put away in the wrong place and it's the first time i've worn them. they are soft and wonderful!!!!



and i put on a pair of sneakers that had gotten burried with my flip flops.

and suddenly everyhting is right!!

GERMANY!!!!

Ganz Meine Meinung!!!
:) :)
this is my new favorite phrase (in german)

it means "i agree COmpletely!"

my cousin Sarah taught it to me

i am using it every chance I get.

Micah would like to learn how to say contemptable. i think my enthusiasm is overwhelming to him!!

I am a moron

I just said "have a good" evening to someone right after he told me that he was going to a funeral.

Take Luck...and care....take care....of your luck....You too!!



Micah introduced me to Brian Regan (not literally). He does not look like anime in real life. please, pretend that it is an audio clip.